15 Jul 2014
2 mins read
Manufacturers seek efficiency, simplicity, continuous improvement and innovation. In spite of this, many are still not warming up to Cloud technologies. Why? When I talk to the CIOs, IT leaders and Business leaders in these companies it is difficult to put a finger on one or two causes. Rather it is a bunch of things.
First of all, it is ownership mind-set. Do I lose control of hardware, software, data etc. if I adopt Cloud? Can I still assure my organization that all our data, IP etc. are secure when they are outside my company? This is a tough issue to crack and will take time to resolve. The only way perhaps is a learning journey travelled together by the company and its technology partners. As we reach the end of the journey, facts will start to prevail over the fear of the unknown and adoption will follow.
The other is the problem of ‘Exclusions’. Many first movers have found moving to Cloud has actually raised their costs. Companies end up paying lot more than what they planned for. This happens because either they did not fully understood what was not included in the base price or did not monitor and manage their resource usage very well and then all the extras started to add up. As more and more cloud providers enter this space, competition will take care of some of these problems – especially when the marginal cost of providing ‘the extra’ is not high. But companies cannot leave all of this to the competition. They will need to monitor and manage their Cloud usage as prudently as they manage their usage of electricity, raw material and other such 3rd party resources.
But there is a bigger and deeper problem which is holding back Cloud adoption. It is companies themselves limiting the possibilities. Cloud is not only about taking your data centre resources to a public or private cloud or subscribing to cloud based apps such as Workday or Salesforce.Com. Companies have a lot more to benefit when they start to become both consumers and providers of Cloud. This ‘twin-engine’ thinking is essential first step to ‘Cloud First’ model. Companies need to ask how they can get more value by creating access to all our resources e.g., IP, data, idle machines, inventory etc. in an on-demand, scalable, pay-per-use model?
Many innovative companies are already starting to think and operate this way. I recently spoke to the Head of Warranty Management for an auto component manufacturer. He wanted to share the failure statistics of components with dealers and OEMs so that they can better predict and plan their inventory, maintenance plan etc. Another company, I know wants to build a cloud app for QA plan and log for all its products, so that its customers can decide what additional testing they need and together they create a complete end-to-end testing log across the value chain.
Adopting ‘Cloud First’ thinking will not be easy. Current practices, legacy assets and established mind-sets will create roadblocks. One approach to address this will be what companies did when they launched their DotCom businesses – they set these operations as a separate business with deeply integrated IT and Business teams. These teams were not bounded by legacy, had the hunger to innovate and flexibility to operate. Something manufacturers should think about as think about Cloud.
About The Author:- Satya Samal is a Senior Vice President with Hexaware and runs Hexaware’s Manufacturing vertical. He can be followed on Twitter @Satya_Samal
About the Author
Satya Samal is a Senior Vice President with Hexaware and runs Hexaware’s Manufacturing vertical. He can be followed on Twitter @Satya_Samal
Manufacturing and Consumer
14 Apr 2020
27 Sep 2018
14 Mar 2018
07 Oct 2015
18 Jul 2014
30 Jun 2014
26 Jun 2014
Enterprise Solutions, Manufacturing and Consumer
31 Jan 2014
03 Jan 2014
28 Nov 2013
BI & Analytics
19 Mar 2009
26 Nov 2010
Digital Assurance
02 Jan 2012
17 Feb 2012
Infrastructure Mgmt. Services
02 Mar 2012
03 Jan 2013
04 Feb 2013
06 Feb 2013
Digital Assurance, Enterprise Solutions
14 Feb 2013
18 Feb 2013
21 Feb 2013
27 Feb 2013
Others
01 Mar 2013
04 Mar 2013
Enterprise Solutions
05 Mar 2013
18 Mar 2013
Digital Assurance, Enterprise Solutions, Others
22 Mar 2013
12 Apr 2013
26 Apr 2013
29 Apr 2013
13 May 2013
11 Jun 2013
17 Jun 2013
25 Jun 2013
19 Aug 2013
26 Aug 2013
27 Aug 2013
03 Sep 2013
10 Sep 2013
19 Sep 2013
24 Sep 2013
26 Sep 2013
30 Sep 2013
01 Oct 2013
03 Oct 2013
01 Nov 2013
19 Nov 2013
03 Dec 2013
20 Dec 2013
22 Jan 2014
27 Jan 2014
12 Feb 2014
13 Feb 2014
20 Mar 2014
24 Mar 2014
17 Apr 2014
11 Jun 2014
10 Jul 2014
16 Jul 2014
28 Oct 2014
13 Jul 2015
06 Aug 2015
26 Aug 2015
28 Sep 2015
26 Oct 2015
07 Mar 2016
22 Mar 2016
13 May 2016
23 May 2016
Application Transformation Mgmt.
11 Jul 2016
25 Aug 2016
03 Sep 2016
14 Sep 2016
15 Nov 2016
22 Nov 2016
25 Nov 2016
Business Process Services
25 Apr 2017
Banking and Financial Services
18 May 2017
30 May 2017
23 Jun 2017
27 Jun 2017
18 Jul 2017
26 Oct 2017
Healthcare, Insurance
28 Nov 2017
11 Dec 2017
25 Jan 2018
21 Feb 2018
( Mandatory field * )
The information you provide will be used in accordance with our terms ofPrivacy Policy
Please Check on "I Agree" to register for the blog.